Like Olympic champions they had worn gold, silver and bronze medals on the podium, but in contrast to the amateurs (who had practised their sport only for theirown and their country´s glory), the drivers of the Canadian American Challenge Cup had belonged to the highest paid sportsmen of their time. No wonder, that a lot of Grand Prix drivers from Europe had come over the Atlantic Ocean for the hunt for US-Dollars, the enormous sums of prize money had been paid in.
While European sportscar racing in the
Worldchampionship of Makes had been under strong rules (3.0 litre
prototypes or 5.0 production sports cars with 25 copies to be
built), the cars used in CanAm racing were nearly out of any
limitations. The F.I.A. regulations for the group 7
(double-seater racing cars) had demanded ony covered wheels and a
two seat cockpit with also two doors. The other rules introduced,
had concerned only safety matters, so the type and the cubic
capacity of the engines used had been absolutely free, a dream of
every racing car designer.
The CanAm consisted of 6 to 11 race meetings, most of them held in the United States of America combined with a third of the series taking place in their neighbour country of Canada. In contrast to CART, CanAm racing never had left Northern America, but in Europe very soon a copy had been installed, that had got the name Interserie (and that does exist until today) under the same sporting and technical regulations. While the 9-6-4-3-2-1 points system had been used in Grand Prix Racing, the CanAm authorities under leadership of the Sports Car Club of America had installed a system of theirown, giving the winner 20 points, the second 12, the third 10 and so on up to a single one for 10th place.
The two first ever CanAm races had taken
place at the Canadian Grand Prixtracks of Mosport and Mont
Tremblant in 1966. Very early many European Grand Prix drivers
(and those coming from the British dominions) had smelled the big
money to be earned, above all Jackie Stewart and John Surtees. It
had been the Englishman, Grand Prix World Champion 1964 in a
Ferrari, who had won the first CanAm series consisting of six
races, with three victories to his credit, in a British made Lola
chassis with an American Chevrolet engine. The Scot, being the
rising star in international motorsport of that era, concentrated
most of his efforts on Grand Prix Racing. He never had been able
to come to a top performance level in the CanAm class because of
the lack of time for competing in with the concentration needed.
Stewart´s best overall result was a third place in 1971 in his
Lola Chevrolet (sponsored by cigarette brand L & M) with
winning the rounds of Mont Tremblant and Mid Ohio. For 1972 he
had signed a contract with CanAm dominating McLaren Racing, but
before the season had started in Northern America, the hectic
sports and businessman had got an ulcer, in the doctors`opinion
caused by too much stress. So Stewart had to retire from CanAm
racing never to return.
Each CanAm season started very late in June to be finished in October as the European motorsport did, too.
At the end of 1965 Bruce McLaren, racing driver, engineer and businessman in personal union, had left Cooper Cars to concentrate on the company of his own he had founded before called Bruce McLaren Motor Racing Ltd. with their headquarters in British Colnbrook near London´s airport of Heathrow. For McLaren CanAm racing became the basis of his motorsport business activities. The New Zealander had brought two cars to the CanAm tracks from the very beginning of the championship for himself and two of his fellow countrymen, first Chris Amon, then Denis Hulme. Under that condition McLaren Racing had been able to earn a lot of starting and prize money. Already in the second CanAm season in 1967, the McLaren team became the dominating company, the Bruce & Denny Show had begun with the New Zealanders winning four titles in a row from 1967 t0 1970 followed by a fifth one by Peter Revson from the USA in 1971. Very soon these successes had brought the commercial sponsors of Gulf oil and Reynolds aluminum to the team, meanwhile having both found a branch and an engine shop of their own in the United States. The third column of economic stability (at the side of starting and prize money and sponsor expenses) became the selling of a number of their last years´cars freshly manufactured under lincense by the special company of Trojan (based in Croydon in the South of London, also doing a lot of restauration jobs for historic cars and entering a Grand Prix car of their own in 1974 driven by Tim Schenken). The McLaren Chevrolets in their yellow-orange livery became the symbol of CanAm racing to finance also the New Zealanders´Formula One activities a very long time.
CanAm racing also had become interesting for commercial racing car factories like Lola and March. They hoped to sell some chassis for the use of private drivers, but the real breakthrough did not really come their way, because the semi-professionals preferred to buy Trojan-McLarens or used cars from Colnbrook.
Very promising looked the CanAm series
also to Ferrari. The Italian sports car manufacturer, selling
most of their products on the North American continent, had
designed their 712 (with 7 litre 12 cylinder engine) for the use
of their Italo-American driver Mario Andretti, but they never
became able to reach the level of the McLarens and later the
Porsches. A relatively successful entry was the American Shadow
Chevrolet sponsored by oil company UOP and
driven by Englishman Jackie Oliver. The CanAm project had been
Shadow´s base for entering Grand Prix Racing in 1973. The most
exiting car of the whole epoque was the revolutionary Chaparral
Chevrolet with two fans in the back and skirts nearly around the
car for producing a vacuum under it for better grip. The car,
driven by Jackie Stewart, was very fast, but no very reliable.
Before it could become a very serious rival to the established
competitors, it was forbidden by the sport´s governing body, a
thing very often is done in American motorsports without any
notice.
Porsche,
the Stuttgart/Germany based Austrian sports car manufacturer, had
been involved in CanAm racing with the Swiss Jo Siffert driven
917PA since 1969. As Ferrari also Porsche sells the main part of
their year´s overall production to the USA. So their CanAm
activities, supported theirown Porsche +Audi Division, was
logical. In 1970 and 1971 they twice won the Worldchampionship of
Makes, but regulation changes for 1972 (only 3 litre prototypes
were allowed) forced them to withdraw their mighty 5 litre 917
coupès. While Jo Siffert had explored the territory with his own
STP and Marlboro
sponsored 917/10 even powered by a
normally-aspirated engine, the Stuttgart company, runned on a
family base, decided for a cooperation with the United States´
leading racing team, being that one of automobile enterpreneur
Roger Penske. In winter 1971/72 Penske driver Mark Donohue, an
educated engineer with an university´s degree, started the
development work with the Porsche staff at the company owned test
track of Weissach. The 5 litre air-cooled 12 cylinder boxer
engine was supplied with twin turbos, one for each cylinder bank
and a newly designed space frame made out of very light magnesium
was constructed. Very soon it became clear, that Porsche had an
easy game with the 
McLarens
dominating so far. Mark Donohue was on the way to become the
first non-McLaren CanAm champion since John Surtees back in 1966,
when he had a very bad practice accident caused by a loose rear
wing of the 950 horse power Porsche. Donohue sustained heavy leg
injuries making him retire from racing for several weeks, so
Penske (in agreement with Porsche) signed up with another popular
US-American, George Follmer, inspite European stars like Ronnie
Peterson and Jacky Ickx were in the public discussion. Follmer
had left no doubts, who was going to win the 1972 CanAm
championship, when Donohue returned to the tracks fully recovered
at the end of the season in a second L &
M sponsored 917/10 . At the end of the year
McLaren became so frustrated, that they retired theirs cars from
CanAm racing (to concentrate on Formula One and USAC) and the
private teams, at least those ones, who had sufficient money,
became customers of Porsche. For 1973 Porsche and Penske brought
an evolution of their successful design, the 917/30 with a
stronger (5.4 litre) engine with up to 1200 horse powers
(depending on the boost used) and revised aerodynamics. The sole
entry in the colours of oil group Sunoco for
Mark Donohue took Americas´s most popular star driver at that
time to six race victories and a superior triumph in the
championship. Things looked so bright for the future of the whole
business, when the economies of the Western part of the world
were hit by the first energy crisis in winter 1973/74. As the
consequence of that, the governing body of CanAm introduced fuel
consumption limitations for the mighty Chevrolet and Porsche
engines, but more and more teams and sponsors withdrew from the
scene. The era of unlimited motor racing had been definitely
over, before the CanAm was cancelled after the 1974 season. What
remained is the most glorious epoque of double-seater racing
being worth to be remembered until today.
J H
Graphics: project * 2000
© 2002 by researchracing
